"Heroes of America Series,"--

"William Penn"

Although the colony founded by William Penn lay to the south of Cape Cod in much richer countryside, and the founding was not as difficult as experienced by the Pilgrims, William Penn's background was filled with great suffering and sacrifice and material and emotional losses that would stagger most people and even the greatest Christians today.

It is so vital to remember William Penn and his contributions, as a young woman who knows my mother remarked upon seeing two books of ours about Billy Graham, "Oh, is he a Christian?" That statement is the most amazing thing I have ever heard. She is a product of America's secularized public schools which were founded to incalculate Christian faith above even knowledge and training--yet after the U.S. Supreme Court and the secularist teaching profession got through with her she did not have a clew after completing twelve grades of elementary and junior high and high school that one of the foremost Christian leaders and evangelists of all time (who has spoken and given the Gospel to more millions than anyone in history) was this man called Billy Graham!

This reveals, in my opinion, the total success of the secularization of American schools and the eradication of the Christian faith upon which they were originally founded. To turn this around, as far as we can, is the purpose of this series, as to curse the darkness is purposeless, or to do nothing is irresponsibility, but to bring the truth back into the public sphere, to challenge mainstream Americans with the "no spin" facts of the Christian faith vs. the doomed mainstream culture, is every individual Christian's duty. Clearly, our nation's only hope if it is to survive as a nation for future generations depends first on prayer and intercession and our making the facts known again, however we can do it. We have failed to do both of these things--obviously, from the conditions we see prevailing around us! We are still here--that is purely God's grace, giving us all a bit more time to get on our knees and cry out to God for ourselves and America and the world--but time is fast running out for us!

Without Jesus Christ, as someone said, America has no meaning or explanation for its existence. America, in other words, makes no sense at all if it is not seen in terms of its Judaeo-Christian values and beliefs upon which it was originally founded. It follows that America cannot survive or continue as a civilization without Jesus Christ. It will self-destruct in any "re-definition" or Ophrah-style "make-over". America can change, and it has changed, but it cannot "re-define" itself according to a secular-humanist world-view or any liberal world-view, or it will transmogrify into a nation of obscene devils, conscienceless oppressors, and victims--a true, living hell, into which our arch enemies the 12th Mahdi-championing Iranians, the Communist Chavezes and other petty dictators of Latin America, the Communist Chinese, the Al Qaida and their confederate terrorist organizations, will walk in without a shot being fired, without any any resistance (just as corrupt, violent, sensual Babylon did, opening its gates to one conquerer after another!). By the way, the ACLU will actually open the gates--as they believe with all their hearts that America is the worst society on earth--and they will personally welcome every enemy America has with a big smile just before they are lined up and shot in the first massacres.

This is not at all far-fetched or hate-mongering rhetoric. It is the actual situation we find ourselves in--do you read the papers, listen to the news, pay attention to the actions and pronouncements of the ACLU, radical gay-rights groups, the liberal media, the critics of America who are treacherous fifth columnists who hold public offices in Congress and the Supreme Court and even the intelligence agencies?

They all are fighting a bitter, all-out war to the death against their most hated enemy--which is their own country and, more specifically, Christianity and moral absolutes.

Have you ever imagined fellow Americans could do such a thing and not be called traitors and tried and sentenced to death or long imprisonments? Well, now is the time when nobody will dare call them traitors--for fear of being called hate-mongering and intolerant. But they are traitors, pure and simple, all the more so since this is a time of peril, a time of struggle for our nation's very survival (not to mention the survival of Western Civilization and Christendom)--World War III, in truth--which was declared by the President right after the events of 9/11 as the global war on Islamo-Fascism.

Are we not fast approaching that state already when our enemies, now inside the extremely porous walls of America in "sleeper cells", unleash their Gotterdamerung with suitcase nuclear bombs in our major cities simultaneously? They claim to have these items ready--they are only waiting for the "right moment", which will be phoned to them.

Even if the miracle of miracles occurs, and the Iranian and Russian dirty bombs do not go off, as a result of the current life and death struggle of the Culture War that is being waged at the same time as the one waged by global terrorists against us, a pathetic caricature bearing the name of America may continue, while it promotes exactly the opposite of every value the Pilgrims and Founding Fathers held dear and essential--dear enough to fight for, dear enough to lose everything for, and essential for not only the nation's welfare but religious and civil freedom, and the American ideals and God-endowed rights expressed as "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Take any house off its foundation, expect it to stand, and it will fall over in the next big wind. Divide it, and it will fall in the same way. America too is falling into utter ruin and chaos, as its foundations in the Pilgrims, Puritans, and other Christians of pre-Colonial and Colonial and Revolutionary/Constitutional America are being wrenched from out under the nation and its institutions.

Meanwhile, the nation is being systematically divided into hostile camps by secular-humanists in the liberal universities, on the editorial boards of textbooks in progress, by instructors and professors teaching on the faculties of tens of thousands of schools and colleges and universities, and even by misguided, liberal-thinking preachers in many churches--all are dividing us along racial, ethnic, cultural, political, and linguistic lines.

We are being "Balkanized," in a word.

What does that term mean to us here in America? If you want to know exactly what the vaunted liberal ideal of "diversity" without a unifying national ethos leads to--look at what happened to the main country in the area of south-eastern Europe, the Balkans, meaning principally Yugoslavia just a few years ago. Of all nations, they had a rich and colorful, centuries-old diversity--but no unity except that imposed by a communist dictatorship and its communist ideology and state "religion" of atheism. When the strong-arm Tito-governed dictatorship lost power at his death, the whole nation soon split along those lines of "diversity." The world watched, agog, as Yugoslavia erupted and tore itself apart in the most bloody massacres and genocidal warfare since World War II, Pol Pot of Cambodia, and Uwanda. No one was spared--old woman, child, babe in arms, young woman--and of course men were treated the same--like animals fit only to be slaughtered by the various warring factions. There was no mercy shown, no consideration given to age, sex, religion, or the other fetishes of diversity-worshiping liberals--all alike were fed to the bloodthirsty God of Ethnic War and "Racial Cleansing."

This same melt-down can happen right here in America, all over the country, as the nation and society self-destructs, with the help of homegrown and imported Islamo-Fascist terrorists no doubt. We got a foretaste of it in the melt-down of the hurricanes and their aftermath in devastated Louisiana and the Gulf states--looting raping, murdering--chaos and anarchy on a vast scale, as the corrupt, liberal Lousianian government authorities claimed they would not stand for such things but allowed them anyway (and they went to the cameras and blamed everyone but themselves for the breakdown and the disasters). The crime rates skyrocketed wherever the refugees from Louisiana fled or were given shelter--which ought to tell us something about the condition of that pre-Hurricane Rita society. Houston's mayor got on record in the most politically incorrect way, declaring that he wanted the refugees to go home as soon as possible and take their violent, criminal behavior with them! Houston's murder rate had gone through the ceiling from the day the refugees poured into the city.

It is hard to know how to speak on this subject, as anything you may not know may sound patronizing when it is presented to you. Who accepted the warnings of Jeremiah, Isaiah, Hosea, and the other prophets of Israel and Judah? Very few! Their nations were destroyed for want of repentance and turning back to the old foundations of faith in God and godly living. Why must America go the same way? It is not necessary to repeat their disasters and their disastrous choices to keep living away from God and His commandmanets.

Hopefully, now you may understand why we need to return to our godly foundations, which many forces in America are jettisoning as rubbish, so that they can reconstruct America into a liberal, relativistic "paradise" where anything goes, where anything is permitted, because there is no longer any moral absolute or Christian faith to call for restraint and godly living.

Now you may understand the urgency of this need for a turn back to the foundations--as our enemies press in eagerly amongst us for our utter destruction, enemies that are within as well as without the gates (and in the age of air travel, our enemies can be here in a matter of a few hours, from all over the globe, or a missile can reach us here from North Korea or China or a merchant ship off our shores in minutes--so that we are no longer a great, safe island-nation, protected by two great oceans). There is no longer any such safety--only God can make us safe if we turn back to Him.

The destruction of a nation begins first within, and when the destruction within is complete, enemies come and finish the job--history teaches us this, again and again. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to conquer a committed, loyal, God-fearing nation, however small--they will make aggression against them far too costly to an attacker. Switzerland, though not a God-fearing nation (it too has thrown away its godly foundations) proved this in World War Ii--as Hitler chose not to lose over a million casualties to conquer the mountain nation. Judah is a better example. When its kings were godly, the nation prospered and every enemy was thrown back--even the mightiest nation on earth at that time, Assyria. But whenever its kings were evil-doers, and the nation turned apostate and went after heathen gods, the nation was attacked and conquered and even carried off into captivity. Israel, the Northern Kingdom, losts its existence utterly for that reason. Judah, with more godly kings, continued to exist, but finally its last kings were so worthless and heathen, God allowed the Babylonians to capture and destroy the nation and Jerusalem and the Temple, a thing many people of that time did not think could possibly happen to God's people. I ask you: if God's people were allowed by God to be destroyed and made captives, how can God spare America for her crimes and apostasy? It just won't happen, people think. The Word of God teaches us otherwise, that, on the contrary, it will happen if we do not repent and change!

First, to see how we need to change as individuals and a nation, there is need to know our own foundations better. We will review William Penn's family in a very brief way, before proceeding to looking at his accomplishments. Why was he important? He became the founder of the great State of Pennyslyvania. Why is that important? Imagine the colonies without Pennyslania leading them in their effort to throw off the imperial British yoke? Imagine the American Revolution without Pennsylvania's thinkers, poliitical leaders, and clergymen and military men? It would not have happened, or been successfully fought. Imagine the war without Pennysylvania for financial support and troops? Pennyslvania was also the venue for the Continental and Constitutional Congresses. The Bill of Rights was formulated and instituted there. It is not possible for a United States, except a very small, truncated one, to have arisen without Pennysylvania acting as the spearhead of the movement, always leading in the forefront of the congresses. Pennsylvania was a premier state, and at the time of the Revolution it was just as important or even more important than New York. Philadelphia was a great trading, commercial, industrial center--and a great cultural and educational center as well. It had every resource to lead the nation--producing wealth, ships, trade, naval superiority, and, just as important, leadership and men for the armies of George Washington to fight the British, the vastly superior power in the world, which was able to crush the American Revolution, seemingly, at any time it chose to deploy all of its armed might by sea and land.

But what made a leader and man of wealth, full of vision, like William Penn the founder of great Pennysylvania?

We do well to look at Penn's family and historical background! Do the current histories and texts used by American schools? They cannot leave him out entirely, but the major emphases will always be, in secular humanist-biased texts, the notably exceptional Salem Witch Trials (thereby taking one singular event and using it to discredit all the Puritans of Massachusetts and their great contributions to American government and civilization) and the theistic philosophy of Deism, which is falsely attributed to providing the world view of most of the Founding Fathers and which is also falsely said to have led to the "Jeffersonian doctrine of separation of church and state"--the cornerstone today of the Cultural War imposed by secular humanist forces in America.

The world view of the secular humanists, imposed on America's history and development, is erroneous, root and branch, when used to explain America's origins and development. This can be shown, point by point. The documents themselves show the utter falseness of the secular humanist attack on Judaeo-Christian foundations and its unrelenting revision and rewriting of America's history to make it look like a secular country founded on secular principles, such as Revolutionary France was founded according to the atheistic principles of St. Just. The only thing that explains the success and dominance of secular humanism is "pure" ignorance--which can be defined as a shocking absence or equally shocking disregard of the true, easily apprehendible facts.

Before even Penn, however, came Rev. John Foxe, 1517-1587, a British scholar. It is not likely that Penn could have survived as a Christian to become the leader in colonization of America without such men as Foxe. Foxe wrote the "History of the Christian Martyrs," detailing the deaths of Christian men and women who died for the sake of their conscience, refusing to recant their beliefs in the salvation of Christ by his complete work on the Cross without resorting to sacraments or saints or the ceremonies of the Catholic Church to save them. He started out a thorough Catholic, studying its history, and was changed to the contrary belief by the religious crimes against conscience and the truth of the Bible in that very history.

We have to wonder how anyone can review that history without coming to the conclusion John Foxe reached! This turning to the truth of the Bible alone for his faith and salvation made his former religionists his most ardent foes and enemies, who immediately sought to kill him for taking a stand on the truth he had discovered for himself.

Though educated at Oxford, he was oppressed and forsaken by the society dominated by t the Roman Catholics of that time, and swiftly reduced to extreme poverty and starvation, without any hope of finding relief or an escape except by dying.

This happened to him during the reign of Henry VIII, with the king's minister, Gardiner, chiefly pressing the war against "dissenters," as conscience-driven believers in Christ were labelled by him and other government officials allied with the bishops and ministers of the English Church.

John Foxe would probably have perished as a young man in that state except that the Duchess of Richmond, acting as a true Christian woman and angel of mercy, stepped in and appointed him tutor to the Earl of Surrey's children (the Earl being incarcerated in the Tower of London). Edward VI was followed by Queen Mary, and both were bitter persecutors of Christians such as Foxe, seeking to impose utter adherence to the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope in Rome upon every man and woman in the realm.

We of America care or know little about such times and personages and brave, religious libertarians such as Foxe, yet our roots of America's religious and civil liberties are principally English. America is not understandable without England and the developments there. The author of the Book of Martyrs was a great scholar, a devout believer in Jesus Christ, saving and forgiving him as a sinner for life eternal without works or sacraments--the very belief that could cost him in that day his very life, as Europe was largely ruled by Roman Catholic authorities, secular and ecclesiastical.

One of Foxer's pupils became the Duke of Norfolk, and the Duke functioned as the chief defender of Foxe in the years that followed Henry VIII. Yet even this powerful duke could not hold back indefinitely the persecution of Gardiner operating from his base at the royal court. Foxe fled by ship to Flanders, in the Dutch and Flemish country across the British Channel. From there he made his way to Basel, Switzerland, where a large colony of British people found shelter from the persecution in England. Here Foxe labored on his monumental history and literally gave everything to it, including his health, before he died. Knowing that his Roman Catholic scholarly critics were legion, tearing apart every sentence for accuracy and factual foundation, he strove all the more to exert the most careful scholarship and methods of authentication when dealing with the facts and accounts that went into the history of martyrs beginning with the first Christian martyr, Stephen, in the Roman era and extending to his own.

Before William Penn, another person, his father's brother George Penn, must be reviewed for his contributions to the life of the great founder of the State of Pennsylvania.

George Fox is featured as a martyr in Foxe's book, for he suffered greatly for his faith in Jesus Christ as his Savior, and in his time was just as much a martyr as St. Stephen, though he did not die for some time after he was subjected to the worst incarceration, starvation, and tortures his persecutors could devise with the Devil's help.

Please return for the continuing article on George and William Penn.